Massive hiring of Nokia Directors under Way
Reports suggest that Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop is planning a cull at the top of the company to stamp his authority on the firm, with around half the board of directors facing being replaced.
According to reports, Elop has hired headhunters to look for replacement directors. Nearly half of the outgoing board members, the majority of Finns and followers of Elop’s predecessor Jorma Ollila and Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, are threatened with expulsion. Two executives specifically named in the reports were the Executive VP of services and mobile solutions, Tero Ojanper¤, and chief development officer, Kai –ist¤m¶.
The expulsions could be signs of a battle-royal at the top of the company over the future direction for the company as it prepares for a major announcement at the end of this week. The company is widely expected to announce that it will start offering smartphones based on either Android or Windows Phone 7, in a marked shift away from its own Symbian platform.
Nokia reaffirms commitment to Symbian platform
Following an announcement by the board of the Symbian Foundation that it will be transitioning from its current operational activities to become a licensing operation only, Nokia today reaffirmed its commitment to the Symbian platform. Nokia plans to continue to invest its own resources in developing Symbian, the world’s most widely used smartphone platform, and expects to deliver a strong portfolio of Symbian-based smartphones to people around the world.
“The future of Symbian as a platform does not depend on the existence of the foundation,” said Jo Harlow, Senior Vice President, Smartphones, Nokia. “The changes announced by the foundation have no impact on Nokia’s Symbian device roadmaps or shipping commitments. The platform powers hundreds of millions of smartphones – including our own – and we expect to deliver ongoing support and innovation benefitting the Symbian ecosystem in the future.”
Nokia’s recent decision to focus on Qt as its sole application development framework is expected to bring greater efficiency and speed of evolution to the Symbian platform. This approach is aimed at ensuring compatibility for apps with future Symbian platform versions, and enables more frequent updates and upgrades for Nokia smartphones. To take advantage of this ever-growing opportunity, developers can find the tools and support they need through Forum Nokia, and global distribution to Nokia’s broad base of smartphones through Ovi Store.
Nokia is the volume market leader in smartphones and the company’s commitment to the Symbian platform is unchanged. Nokia smartphones based on the new Symbian platform include the Nokia N8, Nokia C7 and the new Nokia C6-01 which are available now, as well as the upcoming Nokia E7 which is expected to ship before the end of 2010. Nokia expects to sell more than 50 million Symbian^3-based devices.
Nokia at Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2010
Nokia will exhibit and demonstrate its portfolio of Symbian-based smartphones at the annual Symbian Exchange and Exposition (SEE) 2010 event in Amsterdam, Netherlands November 9-10. Nokia’s Jo Harlow will deliver a keynote address on Tuesday, November 9 at approximately 10:15am CET. For more information on the event, which is hosted for the Symbian community and free to attend, visit http://www.see2010.org/.
About Nokia
At Nokia, we are committed to connecting people. We combine advanced technology with personalized services that enable people to stay close to what matters to them. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device – from mobile phones to advanced smartphones and high-performance mobile computers. Today, Nokia is integrating its devices with innovative services through Ovi (www.ovi.com), including music, maps, apps, email and more. Nokia’s NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, while Nokia Siemens Networks provides equipment, services and solutions for communications networks globally.
Ozura Mobile Chosen as Excite Japan’s First International Distribution Partner
Ozura Mobile, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nextnation Communication and a leading international publisher and developer of mobile entertainment, today announced that it has been chosen as Excite Japan’s first international mobile game distribution partner.
Singapore (PRWEB) August 23, 2006 — Ozura Mobile, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nextnation Communication and a leading international publisher and developer of mobile entertainment, today announced that it has been chosen as Excite Japan’s first international mobile game distribution partner.
Excite Japan, one of Japan’s largest web portals and mobile game providers, is granting Ozura Mobile the distribution rights for its premium mobile game titles. Ozura Mobile plans to make these games available through its extensive network of distribution channels consisting of major mobile operators and distribution partners in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, China, India and the United Kingdom.
“Ozura Mobile has been chosen as the preferred international mobile game distributor due to its well established presence in the global mobile gaming industry,” said Ozura Mobile’s Chief Executive Officer, Lion Peh.
Peh added that Ozura Mobile will be effectively offering more than 150 million mobile subscribers in its network the chance to play some of the most sought after mobile games today.
“This partnership with Excite Japan clearly reflects growing international recognition of Ozura Mobile’s cutting edge technology in the development of mobile gaming platforms. Our mobile gaming platform, FunlogiXâ„¢, is one of the most sought after platforms in the mobile gaming industry as it is highly compatible with games from all over the world ranging from Japanese to Russian origin developed using different development tools,” commented Peh.
He further revealed that over the next 3 years, Ozura Mobile expects a boost in revenue of up to USD20 million from global sales via this partnership.
Informa forecasts mobile gaming sales will generate USD$7.2bn a year worldwide by 2011, growing from the USD$2.4bn sold in 2006. The international provider of specialist information also predicts that Asia Pacific, which dominates mobile games sales, will account for nearly half the industry by 2011.
“The rapid revolution in the mobile gaming market, especially in the Asia Pacific, represents a huge potential for us. We have recently launched Indonesia’s first mobile gaming community with Indosat and we are soon to roll out more of our deployment programs in Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, China and Hong Kong. This will be another win for us in tapping into the substantial global gaming market,” said Peh.
To date, Ozura Mobile has published and aggregated an extensive compendium of games through its distribution network worldwide, representing over 2,000 game titles in over 130 countries. With its propriety gaming platform, FunlogiXâ„¢, Ozura Mobile also provides its state- of- the- art community based mobile gaming technology to mobile operators worldwide.
About Excite Japan Co. Ltd
Excite Japan Co., Ltd is one of the leading Japan-based Internet service provider. The Company has five business segments. The Advertising segment is engaged in the sale of advertising space on its Website to enterprises. The Content Service segment offers community services, music download services, online games and others. The Broadband Service segment provides Internet access services, mainly broadband services to general consumers. The Electronic Commerce (EC) segment is engaged in the sale, auction and shopping of commodities through Internet systems. The Others segment is involved in the development of Internet systems, as well as the management of fan clubs and the provision of services for beauty salon services through Internet. Excite Japan is a subsidiary of Itochu Corporation. Headquartered in Tokyo, the Company has three consolidated subsidiaries and three associated companies.
About Ozura Mobile
Ozura Mobile is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nextnation Communication Berhad and is a leading international developer and publisher for mobile games and game developer engine to carriers, aggregators, mobile phone manufacturers and service providers. The company creates games for the mobile phones based on the J2ME, BREW and Symbian platforms. Ozura Mobile’s games are available all over the world through its distribution network of partners spanning across 130 countries. It is expected that the growth of mobile phones supporting these platforms will exceed one billion units worldwide in 2008.
About Nextnation
Nextnation’ a mobile application service provider’ enables businesses and individuals to access’ connect’ and transact across today’s complex global mobile networks. Its core product MINDCEPâ„¢ Platform is a mobile multimedia communication platform’ facilitating and enabling mobile data transmission worldwide using WAP’ MMS’ SMS and Java technologies. MINDCEPâ„¢ is connected to some of the largest premium messaging networks in the world in order to offer a broad range of services from content distribution to mobile m-commerce and place the company at the forefront of this rapidly growing messaging market. Additional news and information about the company is available at www.nextnationnet.com.
Source- http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/8/prweb427786.htm
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